$34 Million ‘Missing’ from Iraqi Accounts

Around $34 million is “missing” from a post-Gulf War fund that Iraq maintains to protect the money from foreign claims, its parliamentary speaker said on Monday as authorities scrambled to head off further protests on cutting politicians’ pay and ramping up support for the needy.

“There is missing money, we do not know where it has gone,” Osama al-Nujaifi (pictured) said at a news conference in Baghdad. “The money is around [$34 million] in total.”

“It may have been spent somewhere, but it does not appear in our accounts, so parliament will investigate where this money has gone.”

Nujaifi did not say when or how the discovery had been made regarding the missing money. He said two investigative committees had been formed to track down the cash.

The Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which was set up after the 2003 war to handle oil and other revenues, has been protected against claims by a U.N. resolution that expires on June 30.

On December 15, the U.N. Security Council ended key international Chapter VII sanctions imposed on Iraq following now-executed dictator Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait in a major move toward bringing closure on the Saddam era.

We understand that the correct amount is $34 million, as we reported, which is equal to about 40 billion Iraqi dinars. It appears that some other news sites mistook dinars for dollars (as can happen with automatic translation). If we receive any contrary information we will publish it immediately.